Interest Haiku #11: User Interfaces
Thursday, December 18th, 2003 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydUser Interfaces -
See quick. Direct flow.
Compute without thinking hard.
Point. Click. No, not that!
User interface design is one of those activities that you hope doesn't get noticed very often. When a user interface is ideal, people can walk up and use the product correctly without thinking about it. Elevators are good examples. Early elevators were full of ways to sever a user's body parts and required a trained operator (which gives me a tangential opportunity to plug Billy Wilder's The Appartment). Today, you can just push a button pointing the direction you want to go, walk through a door, push a button with the number of the floor you wish to attain, and then walk back out the door. The interface is even set up for use by the blind, though kids have trouble getting past the third floor. Best of all, you have to try really hard to hurt yourself.
I find interesting user interfaces for everything from roads and signs, object and place naming, telephones, ATMs, newspapers, and buildings. However, my main interest is computer user interfaces; I took a very fun and educational course on it last semester. There are lots of different interfaces in computer systems. Programming languages and environments need interfaces which allow lots of power, consistency through time, and clear semantics. Windowing systems need an interface that's primarily mouse-based and that can present controls in a consistent and compact manner. A web site needs an interface that allows the user to find the information she wants without frustration, but also needs an interface that presents a good image of the company. And so forth.
Unfortunately, an astounding number of designers neglect to design with diverse users in mind. I can't count the number of websites I've visited that are very hard to read using lynx or (by extension) a browser meant for the blind. Web designers are often tempted to design for a large, colorful screen. But what happens when that's viewed through the tiny display on a cellular phone or a monochrome PDA?
Our main approach in the user interface course I took was "task centered design." We designed interfaces by observing (or imagining) what goal an actual (specific) user would try and what steps he would be likely to take. This approach can make common activities clear and easy, but too much task focus can make infrequently used, but important and powerful, functionalities a real bitch. It's all part of a balancing act, and using multiple design approaches often helps. I'm also a fan of Heuristic Evaluation and
The old course webpage is still up and ironically has an often-annoying interface, though it uses Wiki, which is a pretty cool abstract interface. The course textbook is freely available; they request a $5 shareware donation to the Evi Nameth scholarship fund. My group improved the user interface for an interactive books reading tutor program for the Center for Spoken Language Research. As a homework assigment, I also created a semi-functional demo of a book finder application.
Your interactive exercise: Link to a web page or several that you think have really terrible user interfaces or have some really neat UI feature. I think RTD's page has improved greatly in the last six years, but it's still often a pain to figure out how to arrive somewhere at a certain time.
See quick. Direct flow.
Compute without thinking hard.
Point. Click. No, not that!
User interface design is one of those activities that you hope doesn't get noticed very often. When a user interface is ideal, people can walk up and use the product correctly without thinking about it. Elevators are good examples. Early elevators were full of ways to sever a user's body parts and required a trained operator (which gives me a tangential opportunity to plug Billy Wilder's The Appartment). Today, you can just push a button pointing the direction you want to go, walk through a door, push a button with the number of the floor you wish to attain, and then walk back out the door. The interface is even set up for use by the blind, though kids have trouble getting past the third floor. Best of all, you have to try really hard to hurt yourself.
I find interesting user interfaces for everything from roads and signs, object and place naming, telephones, ATMs, newspapers, and buildings. However, my main interest is computer user interfaces; I took a very fun and educational course on it last semester. There are lots of different interfaces in computer systems. Programming languages and environments need interfaces which allow lots of power, consistency through time, and clear semantics. Windowing systems need an interface that's primarily mouse-based and that can present controls in a consistent and compact manner. A web site needs an interface that allows the user to find the information she wants without frustration, but also needs an interface that presents a good image of the company. And so forth.
Unfortunately, an astounding number of designers neglect to design with diverse users in mind. I can't count the number of websites I've visited that are very hard to read using lynx or (by extension) a browser meant for the blind. Web designers are often tempted to design for a large, colorful screen. But what happens when that's viewed through the tiny display on a cellular phone or a monochrome PDA?
Our main approach in the user interface course I took was "task centered design." We designed interfaces by observing (or imagining) what goal an actual (specific) user would try and what steps he would be likely to take. This approach can make common activities clear and easy, but too much task focus can make infrequently used, but important and powerful, functionalities a real bitch. It's all part of a balancing act, and using multiple design approaches often helps. I'm also a fan of Heuristic Evaluation and
The old course webpage is still up and ironically has an often-annoying interface, though it uses Wiki, which is a pretty cool abstract interface. The course textbook is freely available; they request a $5 shareware donation to the Evi Nameth scholarship fund. My group improved the user interface for an interactive books reading tutor program for the Center for Spoken Language Research. As a homework assigment, I also created a semi-functional demo of a book finder application.
Your interactive exercise: Link to a web page or several that you think have really terrible user interfaces or have some really neat UI feature. I think RTD's page has improved greatly in the last six years, but it's still often a pain to figure out how to arrive somewhere at a certain time.
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TMBG
Date: 2004-01-14 11:21 pm (UTC)This is John. That is John, too.
Accordions rule.